The NPR Politics Podcast - Weekly Roundup: Thursday, December 14

Episode Date: December 15, 2017

Congressional Republicans are stepping up their attacks on the team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. The House and Senate say they have come together on a final tax bill, and they plan to vote on it next week. A Texas Republican who's under ethics investigation in the House for sexual harassment says he won't seek reelection. And, can't let it go. This episode, host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional reporter Kelsey Snell, justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben and national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's Tamara Keith. We're doing a live show in D.C. on January 18th at the Warner Theater. It's called President Trump One Year In, and we would love for you to be there. Can you think of a better Christmas or Hanukkah present for a certain kind of person? No, I didn't think you could. You can find more information and buy tickets at nprpresents.org. We can't wait to see you there. Hey, this is Michael, walking off the campus of California State University Channel Islands for the last time as an undergraduate. This podcast was recorded at 1.08 p.m. on Thursday, the 14th of December. Things may have changed by

the time you hear this, and definitely by the time I get my diploma. All right, enjoy the show. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast here with our weekly roundup of political news. There are new attacks on the team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. The Mueller team overwhelmingly ought to be attired with Democratic donkeys on their jerseys or I'm with Hillary t-shirts. And Republicans in the House and Senate say they have come together on a final tax bill. They plan to vote on it next week but aren't releasing the details until tomorrow. A Texas congressman who's under investigation for sexual harassment says he won't seek re-election and can't let it go.

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. And I'm Keri Johnson, justice correspondent. And in a few minutes, we're going to tag Keri out and tag in Mara Eliason, who's over at the White House. But let's start with the Russia investigation and the immense amount of pressure that is now being put on the Justice Department and the FBI by Republicans. Carrie, there was a hearing yesterday on Capitol Hill where Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified. It was a regular oversight committee hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, but it was not boring.

Not boring at all. Dominated by Republicans competing to beat up on the FBI and the Justice Department in some ways. You know, the Republicans have long touted themselves as the party of law and order. So it was quite remarkable to see so many of them marching in lockstep and with very negative things to say about the FBI. And Rosenstein is not just any deputy attorney general. He has a very significant role with the Russia investigation. Yeah. Ever since Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, recused himself from the Russia probe, Rod Rosenstein is the man in charge. He's the acting attorney general for the purposes of the Russia investigation. And he's the guy who supervises

special counsel Robert Mueller and the whole team. So the buck stops with Rod Rosenstein, something that was not lost on Republicans this week. And they were really pressing him. Yeah. Take a listen to what Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, had to say about the Mueller probe and the overall integrity of the investigation. And I'm here to tell you, Mr. Rosenstein, I think the public trust in this whole thing is gone. So seize me, you got two things you can do. You're the guy in charge. You're the guy who picked Mueller. You're the guy who wrote the memo saying why he needed to

fire Comey. You're the guy in charge. You could disband the Mueller special prosecutor and you can do what we've all called for. Appoint a second special counsel to look into this, to look into Peter Strzok, Broussard, everything else we've learned in the last several weeks. Okay, there's a few names there that we should probably unpack. Peter Strzok, Bruce Ohr, everything else we've learned in the last several weeks. Okay, there's a few names there that we should probably unpack. Peter Strzok. Peter Strzok is the FBI agent who played a major role in the Hillary Clinton email investigation last year, was also assigned to the Russia investigation, but he, we now know, was removed from the Russia investigation by Special Counsel Mueller in July after an Inspector General investigation turned up some

political text messages he sent to an FBI lawyer in the course of the campaign last year. I think one of those called the president an idiot. Yeah, they both agreed. Both the FBI lawyer and Pete Strzok agreed that the president was an idiot and a number of other things expressing disdain for some of the other candidates in the race. Some support for Hillary Clinton and Republicans have really seized on that message to try to cast this investigation as biased or contaminated in some way. So two questions for me, Carrie.

One is, how is it that we know about what was in those text messages? The Justice Department released some of these text messages to Capitol Hill this week in advance of this Rosenstein testimony. It also made some of those materials available to reporters. Some FBI folks are not happy about that. They say these FBI employees have privacy rights that were violated. That said, the inspector general said he understands that Congress has a legitimate right

of oversight here, and there was a legitimate request for this information. He doesn't seem to have any problem with this material being provided to the Hill at this time. And the Justice Department didn't seem to have a problem either. And so why was this Inspector General investigation even happening? You know, funny you should ask, because I think James Comey's role in the election with respect to Hillary Clinton's emails and some announcements he made last year, some very negative public statements he made about Hillary Clinton, even though the Justice Department decided not to charge her with a crime, that the IG launched an investigation in January of this year to look at Comey, to look at the FBI's conduct, and to look at one

other thing, one other thing we don't know yet. There were serious allegations that Republicans connected to the Trump campaign, people like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, were talking with the FBI agents in New York and getting leaks about the Hillary Clinton investigation that they were then sharing on TV, on Fox News and other outlets. That's still under investigation. We don't know anything about that, Danielle, but we do know an awful lot about these FBI agent texts, which look damaging to Democrats right now. So can you explain to me what's going on with these Republicans who are calling for a second special counsel? What would that be for? They seem to want to investigate the investigation. And one of President Trump's lawyers, Jay Sekulow, has called for a second special

counsel to investigate conflicts of interest at the Justice Department and the FBI, not only to investigate this FBI agent, Pete Strzok, who happened to work on both the Clinton investigation and the Russia investigation, but perhaps to look at things like that uranium deal involving Clinton from years back, which we've talked about on the podcast before, and a whole bunch of other matters that can be wrapped up into a second special counsel. Problem is, Kelsey, that in order to announce a special counsel, there are rules at the Justice Department. First, you have to find there's evidence a crime was committed. I don't know what that would be. And then you have to find that nobody inside the Justice Department currently can investigate that for some reason or other. And none of that has been demonstrated as of yet, even though people

keep talking about investigating the investigators. So Rosenstein, he was on the Hill. I watched part of that hearing. I want to get at what his answers were. I mean, he was asked repeatedly, could you disband it? Do you think there's impropriety? Things like that. What was his response?

He was trying to draw a line to him. He was saying that people involved in the government are able to have political views, personal political views. The difference is that those views cannot infect any ongoing law enforcement investigation. And he said he was confident that both he and Robert Mueller were overseeing the investigation. In fact, at one point, Gerald Nadler, a Democrat from New York, asked him about that Mueller probe and Mueller's ability to lead the probe. Have you seen good cause to fire special counsel Mueller? No. If you were ordered today to fire Mr. Mueller, what would you do? As I've explained previously, I would follow the regulation. If there were good cause, I would act. If there were no good cause, I would not. Yeah. In fact, Rod Rosenstein told Democrats

on the committee the other day that he had seen no one better to lead this Russia investigation than former FBI Director Robert Mueller. That remains the case as far as he's concerned. Mueller's staying on the job. And he's continuing to provide regular oversight, talking to Mueller, checking in on how the investigation is going. And he is saying, at this time, no impropriety. No impropriety. Rod Rosenstein hasn't talked about micromanaging this investigation. In fact, it would kind of't talked about micromanaging this investigation. In fact, it would kind of be hard to micromanage a 70-odd-year-old former FBI director and former Justice Department official since Bob Mueller is perhaps, at least before recent

events, the most widely respected person in federal law enforcement today. But Rod Rosenstein does say he gets heads up about major events. And those things include guilty pleas, indictments, interviews of big witnesses and the like. He says he's satisfied with the way things are going. So I have a kind of crazy question. I am totally used to watching complicated things happen on the Hill. And for some reason, for me, this feels like this is about a big timeline. A lot of this is about figuring out where things fit into a big timeline that I don't always know how to keep track of. Can you explain to me the timeline of this Russia investigation? How important is it? Why is it important? How do we kind of fit these pieces together? there. One is, did people in the Russian government decide to interfere with the U.S.

presidential election? I think U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded, yes, they did. So the question now is, did it work? What were they up to? Were they in cahoots with anyone inside the United States? Were they in cahoots with anyone involved with Donald Trump's campaign, the Trump family or Trump business interests? Those are pretty important questions, right? Problem is that while Robert Mueller and the FBI have a lot of authority to go to court and get subpoenas and demand information and even raid Paul Manafort, the former chairman of the Trump campaign's house, they don't have to tell us right now everything that they're doing. So all we know is in the last seven months that these guys and women have been on the job, they have extracted two indictments and two guilty pleas from people connected in some way to the Trump campaign. Four charges in seven months in this kind of case is really fast and a really big deal.

But we don't know what else they may have. The interviews that they've done, the documents that they have gathered, they don't have an obligation to tell anyone in the public right now. And they're being kind of careful with respect to your people in Congress too, Kelsey, because sadly they have a reputation for leaking and sometimes doing things for their own motivation. I've never seen that happen. That's not, no. So this means that, you know, because Mueller has to keep some of this stuff under, I mean, they have to keep a lot of their investigation under wraps.

So the more stuff is leaked, the more, at least in the public day-to-day conversation, it can seem like these text messages are the biggest thing. They are sucking all the oxygen out of the room when really day-to-day at the FBI during this investigation, much bigger things are still happening. Much bigger things may be happening under the surface and they are going to want to control the timeline, not people like us. So stay tuned. The way I think about it is like we don't know what we don't know. Robert Mueller knows what we don't know, but he's not telling. And I sort of think of it like we're looking at an elephant, but all we can see is the toenail. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I spend a lot of times wondering, so I'm seeing a toenail, but or is this a tail? Or is this a rhinoceros? Right. You need to research elephants more. You know, and this brings up kind of a big policy question, right?

Prosecutors and FBI agents develop criminal cases and they bring them to court or they decide no charges are warranted and they never bring anything to court. They're not interested in telling a cohesive narrative story about what happened last year and the year before and what happened this year too. So there's an open question about whether when they're done with this, whenever that is, they're going to write a big report and give it to Rod Rosenstein, the deputy AG, who's then going to release it to the American public, or whether some of this information is so sensitive and so complicated that it's never going to see the light of day. That's why these congressional investigations matter, too, because they have a little more freedom to tell folks what they find when they find it. Gosh, that sounds so unsatisfying as a

reporter. And as people who just like stories and narratives. All right, Carrie, we're going to let you get back to reporting and we are going to tag Mara Liason in. It's time for a quick break. And when we come back, taxes. Support for this podcast and the following message come from SimpliSafe. Right now for the holidays, SimpliSafe is giving you an offer. $200 off their special home security package. It's got entry sensors, motion sensors, glass break sensors, everything you need to stop criminals from touching your home. Save $200 on your SimpliSafe home security system today at SimpliSafeNPR.com. Hey, this is Scott Detrow.

And I'm Tamara Keith. And think about this. Think about how many words and phrases you have learned on the Politics Podcast this year. Things like emoluments and the reconciliation process. Reconciliation, something we have talked about a lot and something that I anticipate we'll be talking about a lot more in the days and weeks and months to come. And not only that, we're going to be talking about things you have never heard of, I have never heard of, and Tam has never heard of. But when they happen and when they're newsy and when they're relevant, we will figure it out and we will explain it to you because that is what we do every week on the NPR Politics Podcast. You know, we learn as we go. Like, Scott and I are learning from all of our wonderful colleagues

who are part of the NPR Politics Pod Squad. But in order to do all of this, we do need your help. And that's why we've been asking for your support. So if you've not made a contribution yet, we're asking you to take a moment, think about how much you've relied on this podcast, and think about the fact that we rely on you

to keep it going. So that's why we're asking you to go to donate.npr.org slash politics and make a contribution. And that hooks you up with your local public radio station and tells them that we sent you. And once you've given, go shout it from the rooftops on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag WhyPublicRadio. Thanks. Now back to the show. All right. We are back and we are joined by Mara Liason, who is over at the White House. Hey, Mara. Hi.

Thank you for letting me come and play today. Oh, we love playing. The House and the Senate are getting close to a vote on their big tax bill. Republicans in both chambers say they've agreed to a final deal and they are, as of now, planning to vote on it next week. Though at this point, they have not yet released the details. Kelsey Snell, you have been searching out these details with your sources on the Hill. So where does this stand? Can you give us sort of the broad strokes of what we think it's going to look like? Sure. So we should start by saying that by the time you are listening to this, you may know more about the tax bill than we do at this very moment. We are waiting for the bill

to come out. We know that they're going to be keeping major provisions like doubling the standard deduction that most people take on their taxes. So that'd be $12,000 for an individual, $24,000 right off the bat if you're a married couple. We also know that they plan to cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, which is a little bit higher than they were talking about, but still in the general ballpark. They plan on cutting rates for the highest earning individuals from 39.6% to 37%. And we know that they're going to make some changes to the mortgage interest deduction and to state and local taxes. I think Danielle can help explain a little bit about that.

Right. Yeah. So they're not getting rid of state and local tax deductions like we had talked about in some iterations of these bills. Instead, they're going to cap the amount that is deductible at $10,000. By the way, of course, you know, not all households itemize their deductions. The households that do tend to skew slightly higher income. So this will only apply to a certain subset of Americans. And as far as the mortgage interest deduction, you know, the two bills had two different things going on there. One bill would have said that you payments on mortgages valued up to $500,000. The current law sets the number at a million dollars. So the agreement that they're looking at, they're leaning very strongly towards setting that cap at $750,000, but only for new mortgages. So if you already have a mortgage out there, your mortgage is almost definitely going to be grandfathered in. So not a problem unless you're buying a house going forward. Right. Aside from that, you know, President Trump yesterday was talking about how the child tax credit will grow. We don't know yet how much that is going to grow. Also, just to throw this out there, because I know I've gotten a lot of tweets and emails and so on about this, they will not be treating tuition waivers for graduate students

as taxable income. So that thing that a lot of graduate students had freaked out about will not come to pass. It doesn't look like. And the other thing, as I understand it, is that the Senate bill repealed the individual mandate under the Affordable Care Act. And as I understand it, the merged bill does that as well. Yeah, I spoke with several congressional aides who are working on this legislation. They said that we should look to what Speaker Ryan said a few weeks ago. When he was asked about this, he said that the only reason that it wasn't in the House bill is because they've never seen the Senate be able to actually pass this. Different versions of repealing the individual mandate or eliminating it, eliminating the penalty, which is what this bill actually does, have passed the House several times, but it's never passed the Senate. Now that it's passed the Senate, the House is ready to take it

up and it will be included in the final package. What's so interesting to me is that as all these little final tweaks and compromises get made, the bill is getting even more tilted to the wealthy, which it already was. And that's its biggest political vulnerability. Even though it's really important politically that Republicans pass this, it's the only piece of major legislation they will have been able to pass in the Trump administration. But the bill is polling very, very badly. And Democrats are hopeful they can run against this next year. Republicans say, you know what, this isn't like Obamacare. We're not reordering a sixth of the American economy. Most people will get a tax cut, even if they expire in 2025. Most people will get

a tax cut, and this is not going to be an albatross around our necks. So that's the big political question. We're going to see what happens going forward. Danielle. Right. And Mara mentioned polling, and just to throw a couple of numbers out there, there was a poll from Quinnipiac last week If that's the big political question, we're going to see what happens going forward. Danielle. Right. And Mara mentioned polling. And just to throw a couple of numbers out there, there was a poll from Quinnipiac last week where they asked people, OK, who is going to benefit most from this bill? This is, of course, skewed by party. But overall, roughly two-thirds of Americans say high-income people will benefit most from this bill. 24% say middle income, 5% say low income.

The rest don't know or didn't answer. But two-thirds of Americans think the highest income will benefit from this. That is massive. Aside from that, talking flat-out approval and disapproval, a plurality of people, 53%, so around half, disapprove of this bill. Only 29% approve of it. So you pass this. The question I have is, is it a Pyrrhic victory? Is it a win for you?

You can put something in the W column, but Americans don't really like it. So Republicans are trying to sell this as a middle class tax bill. And President Trump yesterday at the White House brought all these families who talked about the savings they thought they were going to get. But if this poll and other polls are indicating that people don't believe that it's a middle class tax cut, and if actually the nonpartisan analysis makes it pretty clear that higher income people will benefit more, it seems as though the pitch isn't working. Well, people next year, we're going to find out if people feel they've gotten a tax cut. They didn't feel they got the Obama tax cut. It was doled out in such tiny little bits in their paychecks that they thought that they never got it. This time, some people are going to be able to double their deductions.

Will they feel that that's a great gift from Republicans in Washington? They might. But other people who live in suburban districts that Democrats are targeting are going to see their state and local tax deductions go down, be less valuable. They might feel like they got a tax hike. And Republicans that I talked to say that they think that people will start to see this pretty quickly. It's something that the president himself mentioned in his speech. I think we have tape of that. So I'm excited to announce that if Congress sends me a bill before Christmas, the IRS, this

is just out, this is breaking news, has just confirmed that Americans will see lower taxes and bigger paychecks beginning in February. Just two short months from now. Okay, so we should explain what the heck he's saying. The president didn't make it clear, but Paul Ryan's office then sent out an email sort of explaining it. Right. This gets a little wonky, but it's not too bad. It relates to the tax tables, the withholding tables that the IRS will send to employers all over America. Yeah. And remember when you got hired your first day on the job, you were asked to fill out a W-2 form. And that's how they determine how much they take out of your paycheck. And when the new tax tables are sent out, people will fill out new W-2s and have new withholdings. So that is how

they will figure it out. And in theory, people who are likely to get a tax cut can change their withholdings and immediately start seeing a little bit more money in their paychecks every two weeks or whenever they get paid. Right. But so here's my question. Is this a political move? Is the goal here to try to have people see something, feel something before they vote in November 2018 in the midterm elections? Right. That's a great question, because if this is taking effect next year, then you're not going to be doubling that standard deduction until you sit down in, if you're a procrastinator, April of 2019. You know, like, so that's not going to happen before you go to the poll on Election Day. It's possible that people will notice a small change there. We don't yet know what the distribution looks like. So we don't know who's going to fall into what brackets.

We don't even know what the brackets are because the Senate bill has different brackets than the House bill. All we know is that the top rate will be cut. So we know that those people who are at the very top echelon of earners will be getting a tax cut. So that doesn't really help them from an optic standpoint right now. But Republicans think people will see it in their paychecks, will come around and will feel excited. But, you know, there's another thing, and maybe all of this is not important because the most important thing, which Republicans told us over and over again, is they had to pass something because not passing it was almost suicide. It was an existential thing. What did Lindsey Graham say? If we don't pass this, it's like the end of Mitch McConnell as we know it. So maybe just passing something, just being able to go to their donors and their base voters and say, look, we're not only a majority party, we're a governing

party. We actually passed a big piece of legislation and the president signed it. Maybe that's all the win the Republicans need. And the rest of it is going to be relatively inconsequential. So, Kelsey, what are the odds that this thing passes? It seems to have been on a glide path to this point. So one of the things I've been explaining to people is that the House bill passed the House, the Senate bill passed the Senate, and the process they're doing right now is just trying to make sure they don't lose any of that support. Part of doing that is they are trying to get additional little pieces of the bill together to appease some people. We do know that

it's probably going to pass the House. There's a lot more support there. Where it's really tenuous is in the Senate, where there is a much slimmer Republican majority, as we have talked about almost every podcast. That slim majority means that if all 52 Republicans are voting, they can only afford to lose two votes and then have the vice president come in and break a tie. Well, we've heard that at least a few Republicans have concerns. Senator Bob Corker is worried that this adds too much to the deficit. Senator Marco Rubio says he wants a more generous tax credit for children. So he wants to make sure that a larger portion of the child tax credit is refundable so that people could take that money back as a check from the IRS. Even if they aren't paying taxes otherwise. Right. And then we have a few other people who are just waiting to see if their side deals are included. So people like

Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who wants better tax breaks for small businesses. So it's not a done deal. But the Republicans I've talked to throughout the week said that they were pretty confident that this would pass. So we'll have to see once we actually see a bill. Yeah, because we still haven't seen a bill. Okay, we have done taxes for now. We will do more taxes next week, I promise. But I want to move on to a lightning round because this week's news seems to be coming from a fire hose. And well, that's actually every week. But let's do a lightning round this week. Tomorrow is the last day of open enrollment for Affordable Care Act health care plans.

If you want to have insurance in 2018 and you get your insurance on the individual market, tomorrow is the deadline. Mara, this is a much shorter enrollment period. What are things looking like? The headline on the story is that enrollment is up on a week-by-week basis over last year. About 650,000 more people have signed up than at a similar point last year, but overall enrollment will probably come in less than last year because, as you said, it's a much shorter enrollment period. The website has been down for big chunks of the weekend. And because the Trump administration, of course, hasn't been as enthusiastic, to put it mildly, about getting people signed up as the Obama administration. And interestingly, as time has gone on, the popularity of the Affordable Care Act has just inched up and up.

And Danielle, we've talked about this on a past podcast, the FCC vote on net neutrality rules. Right. So this afternoon, just while we were in the studio, actually, we got the alert. The FCC voted three to two. And that is a long party lines. The FCC is a five person board. Three to two that it is going to get rid of net neutrality rules. Those were instituted during the Obama administration in 2015. The short version is that net neutrality creates open access. It doesn't allow your Internet service provider, like, you know, if you get your Internet from Comcast, to privilege any particular website over another. So what opponents of repealing net neutrality, so proponents of net neutrality, fear is that now if Netflix, for example, pays Comcast enough that, you know, you'll be able to get your video from Netflix, but then maybe your Amazon video will be slowed way down. That is a fairly maybe benign version of this, but you know, there's a lot of worry that, you know, a lot of the stuff you want to get on the Internet, you might not be able to get it all at the same rate.

And it might not all be as accessible. So I guess we will see what happens next on this. But as expected, the FCC has voted to reverse those rules. Right. And you can expect a lot of backlash from the people who feel very strongly about this. And there are a lot who feel strongly about this. And a lot of them listen the people who feel very strongly about this. And there are a lot who feel strongly about this. And a lot of them listen to our podcast. They do. Okay, we are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, sexual harassment on Capitol Hill and beyond, and can't let it go. Support for NPR politics and the following message come from Rocket Mortgage by

Quicken Loans. Rocket Mortgage gives you confidence when it comes to buying a home or refinancing your existing home loan. With Rocket Mortgage, you can apply simply and understand all the details so you can mortgage confidently. To get started, go to rocketmortgage.com slash NPR Politics. Equal housing lender licensed in all 50 states. NMLSconsumeraccess.org number 3030. All right, we are back. And there's news today that Republican Congressman Blake Farenthold of Texas is not going to seek re-election. He is under investigation right now by the House Ethics Committee for allegations of sexual harassment. And he settled one complaint in 2015 with $84,000 of taxpayer money, which is a pretty significant thing. He has said he's going to pay that back.

But here's the thing. It sounds like he's not planning to resign, just that he's not going to run again when his term is up in 2018. Yeah, he released a video on his campaign Facebook page saying that when he spoke with his family at Thanksgiving, it seemed like he still had work to do, but that he has reconsidered. House Speaker Paul Ryan came out at his weekly press conference and told reporters that he had had several conversations with Farenthold in recent days and that he supports the decision and thinks it's the right move. That is not going

to stop people from saying that Farenthold should leave right now. There's a big push, even from many Republicans, saying that it's just not appropriate for him to be here. There are, every day, it seems like there are new accusations and new stories about his relationship with his staff that were just, I mean, by most accounts, very inappropriate. Although usually when people resign, it's because they've gotten a swift kick from the leadership of their party. And the Republicans, at least under John Boehner, were famous for doing that. 24 hours, you were out of there when something like this came up. So a lot of times the resignation decision is really up to the leadership. So speaking of all this, NPR and Ipsos have a new poll out today on American attitudes towards sexual harassment and how they've shifted in

recent weeks. Danielle, you've got the crosstabs. You've got a pile of papers over there. Fact check. True. Yes. All right. I'm going to start with two numbers. Roughly 80 percent of Americans agree that, quote, those who report being the victims of sexual harassment should be given the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. All right. 80 percent. two very different stories, you still have Americans wanting to believe both people and wanting to give both people the benefit of the doubt. I mean, yes, of course, they want it adjudicated. But what this shows, at least to me, is just how profoundly confused and not quite sure Americans are on these things. Altogether, 68% of Americans agreed to some degree with both of those statements at the same time. You know, Danielle, there was a number that we looked at earlier where it was looking at the number of Democrats and number of Republicans

who believe that women are being sexually harassed. Do you have those numbers there? Yes. The thing that I thought was really interesting is that the Democrats overestimated the percentage of women who were being sexually harassed as compared to what women themselves were reporting. And actually, Republicans, their estimates were actually more in line with what women were self-reporting on this. It was a fascinating number. Right, right. So we asked people, have you personally experienced sexual harassment? 59% of women said yes. Just for comparison, 27% of men said yes.

All right. But then we asked people, what percentage of women do you think have ever experienced sexual harassment? You average together all of the Democrats' responses, and it's 70%. Democrats, on average, think 70 percent of women have experienced sexual harassment. Republicans thought around 57 percent of women have experienced sexual harassment. So 57 for Republicans, 70 for Democrats. Altogether, 59 percent of women say they have experienced it. or assault or misconduct or anything phenomenally tough is the definition is, you know, do I consider it sexual harassment? For example, when I am walking down the street and some guy cat calls me, do I consider it sexual harassment? You know, depending on what a person at work says about the dress I am wearing or how it looks on me, that sort of thing, like different people are going to see it differently. And it depends on how you define it. And Danielle, a question I would have is there are more Democrats who are women. Right. So Democrats do skew more female than Republicans.

But one really interesting thing about this poll is we can break it down into Democrats and Republicans by gender. And so we asked people, how much are you currently talking about sexual harassment with all the people in your life? All right. So around half of Democratic women say they are talking about sexual harassment with all the people in your life? All right. So around half of Democratic women say they are talking about sexual harassment a lot or some with their families. So 54 percent. At the other end of the spectrum, it's not a huge difference, but it is pretty sizable. Republican men say 30 percent. And you have Republican women and Democratic men

sort of floating in the middle. I saw this pattern quite a bit. Democratic women on some of these questions are way out here. Republican men are way out there. The other two groups somewhere in the ether in between the two. One thing I also want to say to contextualize this is that in this poll, there were, to my mind, remarkably few partisan gaps compared to other polls we've seen about sexual harassment. My big takeaway from this, at least my hypothesis, is this. There aren't big partisan gaps on should you believe the accuser or the accused. Republicans and Democrats and independents were remarkably similar on those. But when you ask them about should you believe Donald Trump accusers, Roy Moore accusers, these accusers, that accusers. Al Franken accusers.

Right. There are more partisan gaps. One thing that may be happening is that in the abstract, yes, Americans naturally think, you know, sexual harassment is bad and here and they may even agree on how to deal with it. But when you get into particulars, people you identify with, then everything goes haywire and suddenly people have very different opinions on things. All right. Now it is time to end the show as we always do with Can't Let It Go, where we all share one thing we cannot stop thinking about this week, politics or otherwise. Kelsey, I think yours fits into the category of both. Yeah. Yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden was on The View. And Meghan McCain, the daughter

of Senator John McCain, said that she wanted to talk to him about his experience and his grief after losing his son to the same cancer that her father now suffers with. And it was an incredibly touching and emotional moment where she talked about, you know, finding comfort in the conversations with him and where he really took the time. And it didn't matter about partisanship or about anything about politics. And he went over and comforted her. and it was a really, really moving moment. I couldn't get through your book. I tried. Your son, Beau, had the same cancer that my father was diagnosed with six months ago,

and I'm sorry. There's a lot of hope there. I think about Beau almost every day, and I was told, sorry, that this doesn't get easier. He actually gets up and walks over to her, right? He says, holding her hand. I don't have the tools to work with this and live with this.

I know you and your family have been through tragedy that I couldn't conceive of. Well, look. What would you tell people? It's not about me. It's about everyone. No, no, no. No, it is about everyone. But look, one of the things that gave Bo courage, my word, was John. Your dad,

you may remember when you're a little kid, your dad took care of my Bo. Biden talks about being friends with John McCain. And he tells Meghan that if there's anybody who can fight this, it's her father. And they talk about all the advances being done in cancer research. And it was a really nice moment. It was very sweet. There are also a couple of, he cracked a joke, right? Or he told about how John McCain told him at one point to get the hell off the ticket. Because they did run against each other. But then also Biden says, I know that if I was anywhere in the country and I needed help, I could call John McCain and he would drop everything and be there for me.

Yeah, right. They seem to be authentically friends. It felt very real. Yeah, it's one of those rare moments that we don't often see when you're talking about politicians where they become human beings and friends. And it's a sad moment, but it's touching. This was Joe Biden at his absolute best. This was a real heartfelt, even bipartisan moment that the country deserved. Danielle, what can't you let go of? All right podcast super fans know that I have a pet issue. That pet issue is garbage hauling in St. Paul Minnesota. Everybody hold on to your hats it's gonna be a wild ride. All right so back in the day up until recently St. Paul had this wildly inefficient tomb. I'm sorry, I'm a reporter expressing an opinion here.

But they had a very inefficient garbage hauling system where nine different houses on the same block could have nine different garbage hauling services. As a former resident of the Twin Cities, I have always found this kind of bonkers. And I think this was actually possibly your very first can't let it go. It very well might have, although it might have been the dancing pumpkin guy. I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter. All right. So as of early November, the city, and I'm quoting from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, by this time next year, the city will likely oversee residential garbage collection,

leaving only one trash truck serving each alley. Now, this may seem like small potatoes to everybody, but I'm just saying that in weeks that have been dominated with the whole country talking about Roy Moore and about this and about taxes and so on, and don't get me wrong, taxes in particular, you know, I think are phenomenally important. That's true. But that things, even at a time of gridlock, things continue to happen on the local level, things that impact people's everyday lives quite literally. And, you know, even those things can move and actually get changed.

All politics are local. I don't know if that's true, but yeah. But this local political story is what you can't let go of. I miss you, Twin Cities. Good job on, you know, improving your municipal services. Mara, what can't you let go of? I can't let go of one little tiny moment in the Alabama Senate race. And, you know, when narratives form about a political event, every little thing becomes a metaphor for that narrative. And the new narrative around Alabama is that Steve Bannon, the fiery populist,

ex-presidential political guru, is incompetent and doesn't know what he's doing. You know, he went down there to lead the insurrection for Roy Moore and he lost. And here is a clip of tape of Steve Bannon at a speech at a Moore rally excoriating Joe Scarborough from Morning Joe, one of the president's foils, about the kinds of colleges he says Joe Scarborough couldn't get into. By the way, Morning Joe, you called me a Yankee the other day just because I'm from Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy. That's right, Joe. I got into some Yankee schools, Georgetown and Harvard, that I don't think you made the cut on, brother. Just because a southerner goes to a Yankee school, Joe, doesn't make him a Yankee. And guess what? Joe Scarborough, who Bannon sneeringly said couldn't have gotten into Harvard or Georgetown where Bannon went. Guess where he went to college, the University of Alabama. Sounds like Steve Bannon didn't do his basic homework or oppo research homework.

I do love that Steve Bannon has gotten this super Southern thing going and that he keeps saying like you people in Alabama. I mean, not anymore, but you Alabamians do not want outsiders telling you how to vote. And yet. But don't forget, he just gave you his most important credential. He comes from Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, which is alive and well, much to everyone's surprise in American politics today in 2017. Tam, what can't you let go this week? It is a big day today. I think I can guess. I'm sure everyone can guess. The new Star Wars movie comes out today,

The Last Jedi. Now, I will admit that I saw it earlier this week with the people of Pop Culture Happy Hour, another NPR podcast. Lucky. But I'm not giving away any spoilers. There is also a truly wonderful poll that has come out from Morning Consult, which polled Americans very extensively. 2,200 adults were polled about their views on Star Wars and Star Wars characters.

It was a very detailed poll. Do you approve of the job that Jar Jar Binks is doing? Is that what we're talking about? Yes. And Jar Jar Binks, and I Is that what we're talking about? Yes. And Jar Jar Binks, and I've pulled the crosstabs too. Oh, wonderful. So Jar Jar Binks is a character from episode one, and he was in episodes two and three and whatever.

But he was like, by far, the worst creation ever in Star Wars. He was like, he's a travesty. He continues to be a travesty. He is a stain on the franchise. People found him offensive, right? He was also deeply offensive. Get out of here. No, no, Mr. Stey.

Mr. called Jar Jar Binks. Mr. your humble servant. I mean, his accent. Anyway. I'm just loving your feelings. Keep going. They are strong. So Jar Jar Binks' approval rating is 37%, which is shockingly high to me.

You guys are looking at me. There's just like silence in this booth. I feel like we're ruining Tab's day right now. Okay, well, let's do just a quick quiz. Who do you think the most popular Star Wars character is? Chewbacca. Han Solo. Princess Leia.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah. Okay, so it goes. Chewbacca's a good guess. Princess Leia is the most popular with a 73% approval rating. Luke Skywalker comes at 72%, tied with Chewbacca and Yoda. Wait, where's Han Solo? Han Solo is down below R2-D2 at 68% approval.

I'm a Harrison Ford super fan. Sorry, not sorry. Don't be sorry. Okay. And that is a wrap for this week. We'll be back in your feed soon. Keep up with our coverage on NPR.org, NPR Politics on Facebook, and of course, on your local public radio station.

And you can support your station and us by donating online at donate.npr.org slash politics and let your friends know that you did it with the hashtag why public radio. And thank you so much to everyone who has given already has put these tweets out there. It's so much fun to read. And as I mentioned earlier, I'm going to be on pop culture happy hour. That is one of our sister podcasts. It's posting tomorrow, talking all about the last Jedi. So for people not in this room who actually care about Star Wars, check it out. It's a lot of fun, a whole lot of fun. I'm Tamara Keith.

I cover the White House for NPR. I'm Kelsey Snell. I cover Congress. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben, political reporter. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And earlier, we were joined by Kerry Johnson, our justice correspondent. Thank you all for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.